Our Struggles, Our Gifts.

Song of Solomon 2:15 “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom”

Riding into work this morning, I was listening to a commentary on Kevin Clash. I’m sure most of you know that Kevin Clash is the voice behind Elmo.Anyone that has a toddler in their life at anytime knows about the most popular character on Sesame Street. Well he has been in the news a lot this week because he was accused of having inappropriate relations with a boy who was underage. By now you know that the accuser recanted and the story is now known to be false.

Kevin has been endowed with a gift, which is to voice Elmo, he has been doing it since the 1980’s so I’m quite certain it’s not just a job but what he has been gifted to do and kids fell in love with Elmo. Now his struggle with homosexuality seems to have made center stage and all of a sudden the ‘character’ seems to be questionable. I heard people on the radio, Christians I might add, saying they will throw away all the Elmo toys their kids have. Or they will never bring that “mess” in their house again. Long story short there was quite a number of people who could not separate his struggle from his gift.

Disclaimer here, I am in no way a supporter of any act that is not embraced in the bible,but this brought two questions to mind. Are these ‘Christians’ upset because of what they think is the magnitude of his struggle or the fact that he has a struggle at all? Since is supposed to be the voice behind a character our kids love.

We all have little foxes which are those struggles the we children of God tend to overlook because they aren’t that “big” likeun- forgiveness, spirit of malice, temper issues,gossiping and the list goes on.They ruin our vineyards. No matter how much we sow, those little foxes eat at our hard work.

If it came out that his struggle was that he was a shoplifter(thief) would the reaction be the same? As for my second question, do we put people on such a high pedestal that’s its impossible for them to fall? Why would we have a perfect expectation for a human that is imperfect and only saved by grace. I’m not just talking of Kevin, but of everyday people we come in contact with; coworker, choirmemeber, family memebers etc

Are we able to be non-judemental enough, tolerant enough that we are able to seperate a person’s struggle from the gift God has given them.?

Afterall the old adage goes ” God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called”